Political parties’ over-sized banners, signboards removed

Islamabad - On the directive of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), District Monitoring Officers have removed a large number of banners, panaflex and sign boards of political parties exceeding the approved size specified by the commission.

“Hundreds and thousands of such display boards have been removed on the directives of ECP and the operation is still going on in every nook and corner of the”. An official of ECP told APP that they have issued strict directives to all the political parties to cooperate with the district administration. He said that the District Monitoring Officers have fined Rana Amir Shahzad, the candidate contesting the upcoming elections from NA 147 for taking out a rally without informing the district administration and also for committing aerial firing in the rally. ECP monitoring team in Rawalpindi district had also removed illegal publicity material from nearly 140 points. To another question, he said the ECP had appointed as many as 592 monitoring teams throughout the country to monitor the election campaign.

He said that 99, 297, 130, 51, 12 and 3 teams have been constituted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, FATA and federal capital respectively to monitor election campaigns of the candidates both for the national and provincial assemblies. “These teams will monitor election campaigns being conducted by the candidates and political parties to ensure strict compliance of the code of conduct,” he added. He said that the ECP would not tolerate any violation on account of publicity material.

As per the Code of Conduct, no person or political party can affix or distribute posters, handbills, pamphlets, leaflets, banners or portraits, larger than the sizes prescribed by the Commission.